Shaman PvP guide
Rogue Rogues do very high melee damange. Their goal is to sneak up on you, kill you quickly, and disappear. While they cannot heal, they have various techniques for avoiding damage and/or healing during a fight: Evasion, Gouge/Blind and Bandage, stuns (Cheap Shot/Kidney Shot). There are two basic types of rogues, stun-lock and ambush. * A Stun-Lock rogue will try to keep you stunned for the entire fight. While they cannot actually acheive a perfect stun-lock, they can come very close. Your job is to wait for the gap in the stun and then break the stun-lock sequence. * An Ambush rogue will start with Ambush, Sinister Strike, Gouge then Eviscerate. You will be only be stunned during the Gouge. Stealth Rogues can Stealth while not in combat and only on a 10-5 second cooldown. During combat they can Vanish, but on a 5 minute cooldown timer. A rogue trained in Preparation can Vanish twice in 10 minutes. * Flame Shock will keep the rogue from stealthing. However, the DOT duration is 12 seconds and the rogue's Blind is 10 seconds. If timed right, the rogue can wait until the DOT timer is 8 seconds, Blind, wait for the DOT to fade then stealth. * Magma Totem is mana expensive, has a medium duration (20 secs) and only an 8 yard radius, but will unstealth a rogue within it's radius on each pulse (2 seconds). * Earthbind Totem will unstealth a vanished rogue on its first pulse if the rogue is within range. General tips * Use a low-level Magma Totem to unstealth the rogue, would be wise trying to evaluate his Fire Resistance gear. * Use 1H weapon and shield to reduce the damage taken. * Nature's Swiftness + Healing Wave may be the first thing to do as you will most likely be at half life or less. * Use Lightning Shield to do damage even while you are stunned * Use Tremor Totem to bring you or your mates out of Sap * Use Cure Poison. Rogues can have slow or DOT poisons on both blades. * Get and use the Grunt trinket to break out of stun * If you see an unstealth rogue, use Flame Shock, Earthbind Totem to kite the rogue. Be sure to keep him from stealthing and you should win with no problems. Warrior * Use 1H weapon and shield. If the server isn't mature, fire resistances are usually low. This means that Flametongue Weapon is a useful weapon buff since the added fire damage ignores the armor rating of the warrior. * Use Grace of Air to increase your dodge, and a Searing Totem for added damage. * Don't melee a warrior until you have to. * Use your PvP Insignia, Earthbind Totem and Frostshock to get away from a warrior who charged you. Since patch 1.8, grounding totem does not absorb the stun effect of charge anymore. * Use Frost Shock for the damage and to kite them from you. Make sure you dont go to far or they will intercept you. * Try to get them down to half health before you attempt to start melee combat. * If you start losing the melee battle, Frost Shock and kite them until you have the room required for a few Lesser Healing Wave spells. * If you have Elemental Mastery or Nature's Swiftness, use it! * Good usage of your mana pool is the most important thing. * If you feel lucky, you can try a 2H weapon with Windfury, Strength of Earth, Grace of Air, and Stormstrike, and hope for a Windfury damage spike. Against a well-geared warrior, you will take damage very rapidly without a shield. Priest * Use 2H weapon. * If you try to fight a Priest, they will probably use their Psychic Scream spell to scare you away. So, try to drop a Tremor Totem at just the right moment to keep you in control of the situation. * The battle basically comes down to a healing match. Do as much melee damage as you can, and whenever you see them channeling a spell, Earth Shock them to interrupt. You always want to have a Rank 1 Earth Shock set up in addition to your highest rank if you get low on mana, or don't want to waste mana. * Purge! A lot of priests will raise a Power Word: Shield and start healing when the situation becomes too dangerous. Dispelling the shield, followed by Earth Shock can effectively prevent this * Be wary of smart priests that feign a heal by first casting some other spell (which a shaman might shock out of a reflex). Warlock * Use 2H weapon. * Purge. Warlocks will often buff themselves with Demon Armor, which can be dispelled. * Dropping a Grounding Totem is also a good idea. * Warlocks will try to Fear you so drop a Tremor Totem. Even if you're outside it's range, it's good to have. * Dont worry about direct damage just make sure you keep the DoTs off of you. * Get into Melee range and go straight for the warlock (ignore the pet). Mage * Use 2H weapon. * Purge! Mages will have Frost Armor and Arcane Intellect cast on themselves as a standard buff. * Drop a Grounding Totem when the "hands light up" (which usually is the first thing you will see happen in case of a Fire Mage). * Earth Shock whenever you see them channeling a spell. * Try to figure out what type of Mage you're fighting quickly, and drop the appropriate totem - Frost Resistance Totem for Frost Mages, Fire Resistance Totem for Fire Mages. If they're an Arcane Mage...hope you've got some Arcane resistance built into your armor. * A Mage may try to Polymorph you. Don't panic though - you'll revert to your normal self if you take any damage, and while you're sheeped you'll quickly regain your health and mana. * Bash them on the head really hard. Druid * Purge! * The druid is a weird class to battle. They can switch forms quite rapidly during combat, switching from a caster class to a warrior class, to a rogue class. The key adaptation is to treat every form as the associated class (ie. Cat Form as a rogue, Bear Form as a warrior and Druid form as a caster). * Should the druid start to run in Travel Form, slow him down with Frost Shock and Earthbind Totems. * Get in their face early, make them use thier mana for healing. * Dont waste your mana! Most of your mana in this battle should be for healing yourself and keeping the druid as close as possible. Hunter * Use 1H weapon and shield. * Ignore the pet, unless it turns red and gets huge (Bestial Wrath). Then, you're going to die. * A hunter is most effective from a distance. Get into melee range and lay on the hurt in whatever way you prefer. * Frost Shock and Earthbind will keep them in melee range. * Cure Poison should be hotkeyed. Don't bother with the totem. (During this fight you will be moving a lot, and constantly going outside of the totems range.) * If you suspect that they may be using the Freeze trap, drop a Frost-Resist totem first. You could drop a Fire-Resist for the Fire trap, but it's not really that much of a problem. * Earth Shock and Flame Shock should probably be avoided, Frost Shock is much more effective. * His damage over time abilities (Stings) are poisons. Remove them as soon as possible, especially the manaburn thing (Viper Sting) * If you need to heal, be sure you're in melee range first. Slow him with Frost Shock and try to get in a quick heal with Lesser Healing Wave. Even if the pet is on your back you should be able to heal no problem with Lesser Healing Wave. Regular Healing Wave will give them too much time. (Hopefully you have the talents that improve your Lesser Healing Wave) * It's much better however if you kill him before you have to heal. Hunters are one of the few classes it's good to use almost all your mana on trying for a quick kill. * The longer the fight, the harder it gets. Paladin * Use 1H and shield. 2H is a debatable choice, but 1H and shield is usually better. * Flametongue weapon is a viable alternative to windfury. If you opt for 2H weaon, choose windfury because a lucky hit could kill the paladin while he still has mana. * Purge! (Again and again when you see him cast a seal.) * Dont waste your mana! (This is by far the most important) * Keep the Paladin Slowed with Frost Shock, as you would a warrior. * Kite and harrass until half of YOUR mana is gone. You will need the rest for healing. * Remember that Paladin's can cast Divine Shield and then heal while invulnerable two to three times during the battle, while you watch helplessly. During that time heal yourself (if he heals under his magic shield, bandage yourself). * This battle may last a while. Remember to let your naturally high spirit do it's job. Also remember that you CAN'T gain more mana while your casting spells. So make sure you have some time between your casts. Mana regeneration only starts 5 seconds after your last cast. * Most of the time whoever runs out of mana first, loses. The best thing you can do is get them to use their mana. And watch out for Lay on Hands, it can be cast with 1 mana. * Divine Shield cannot be purged, but Blessing of Protection can be. Blessing of protection looks like a lot of whitish hoops traveling around them. If the paladin is using this, Divine shield is most likely on cooldown. Blessing of protection ONLY stops melee damage, but they can't melee with it. Best to ignore that they have this shield up at all, and lightning bolt away. Shaman * You're only going to be fighting shamans in friendly duels, so don't worry about it too much. * It often comes down to who has Nature's Swiftness or not, and who's the better/luckier player. * If you are at least partially enhancement-specced, use your mana only for removing lightning shield from the other player, and to heal yourself. If not, you're probably screwed. Category:Shamans Category:Combat